Aerobics | Buffing Up

Can Cardiovascular Training Affect Weight Gain?

Apr 292010

Question:

I wanted to know if you think it’s a good idea to do aerobics on my off days. I want to gain weight so I don’t know if I should do that. If I do aerobic training, will that help me build muscle or hurt when the muscles need rest?

Answer:

Doing some light aerobic work such as walking or cycling is not going to hinder your muscle gain goals. Doing too much aerobic work or going too hard during your aerobic work will, in fact, hinder your muscle gain.

There are a few reasons for this. In order to gain muscle, you need to eat more calories than your body burns. If you do a lot of cardio work, you are burning a lot of calories that your body could be using to build muscle.

The other reason is that hard cardiovascular training can increase breakdown of the muscle tissue you already have without providing a reason for your body to build bigger muscles, as in weight training. By forcing your body to recover from hard cardiovascular training, you essentially decrease the available resources your body has for building extra muscle.

I would recommend doing 2 days a week of light aerobic work for about 20 to 30 minutes per session. Use this is as more of a cardio maintenance training rather than really trying to improve your fitness otherwise you may limit your muscle growth.

If you want to focus on improving your cardio, then you should focus most of your training on that goal. It is always easier to train towards just one goal rather than two goals.

And if increased cardiovascular capacity is a major goal, I highly recommend interval training as a very effective option. Instead of doing long, slow cardio training, you basically break it up into shorter, more intense bursts of activity.

This will also have the advantage of being more compatible with muscle-growth training. If you’ve seen the physique of a sprinter compared the physique of a long-distance runner, you’ll know what I’m talking about…the sprinter is much more muscular.

So bottom line, if your main goal is weight gain, minimize cardio activity.

Why Doing Cardiovascular Exercises Is Important For Men

Build Muscle No Responses »

Apr 042010

Regularly performing cardiovascular workouts or aerobics does a lot of wonders to your overall health. It strengthens your heart and lungs, improving blood circulation and cell oxygenation. Certain diseases linked to being overweight are kept at bay, such as cancers, stroke, diabetes and osteoarthritis. It’s also an excellent way to combat stress.

Doing aerobics is the best way to shed off those unwanted pounds. Even when at rest, your metabolism is spiked up, continuing to burn up calories. Men who are into body building will benefit tremendously from aerobics. Their muscles will appear to be more defined, as layers of fats on top of them are eliminated.

Cardio exercises, compared to pumping iron, provide you with more options, so you don’t get bored with them easily. It’s important that you work out for a minimum of 20 minutes, to maintain increased heart rate. You may wear a digital sport watch with a heart monitor function for this. Also, you need to do cardio for a minimum of 3 times per week to see results.

To have one that’s custom-made for your needs, you may hire a fitness trainer to give you a cardio program. To help you stick to your schedule, put on a men’s sport watch. Religiously following your program will ensure you’re doing the right things. Usually, it’s based on determinants, like your lifestyle, fitness and health condition, age and others.

There are two main types of cardiovascular exercises: weight bearing and non-weight bearing. Weight bearing work outs involve routines where your lower limbs support the weight of your upper body. The impact your bones get from such work out helps it to grow stronger. Examples are: running, dancing and rope jumping.

Non weight-bearing cardio, on the other hand, pretty much spares your legs from all your upper body weight. Some examples include cycling, rowing and swimming. Unlike its weight-bearing counterpart, this is low impact, so it’s friendlier to your joints.

Weight bearing ones puts you at greater risk of injuring your joints, since they receive high impact during exercising. However it doesn’t necessarily mean non-weight bearing ones leave you at no risk of injuring yourself. For any type work out you do, it’s a good idea to wear protective gears where necessary. For instance, wearing a helmet or putting on knee pads.

On that note, see to it that you’re wearing the right protective equipment for the right work out. For instance, the protection a biking helmet provides is different than that of a giro ski helmet. Also, invest in quality protective equipment, so as not to put yourself at risk of injuries. Part of doing cardiovascular work outs is doing them properly and safely.

Getting the Perfect Upright Exercise Bike

Aerobics Cardio No Responses »

Mar 232010

For a cardiovascular fitness routine which can be exremely effective and low impact, check out the Schwinn 120 Upright Exercise Bike. The 120 is an indoor exercise bike that gives you 16 specific levels of required effort as well as other conveniences that make it easy to shape up by burning calories.

You will find two distinct kinds of exercise bikes on the market – upright bikes and recumbent bikes. Recumbent bikes are configured in a reclining position and are well suited for building muscle. Upright bikes, however, will burn calories faster and at the same time toning your abs and legs. You could practice bike racing, which is probably the most efficient way to burn calories, as you use the Schwinn 131 upright exercise bike.

The LCD monitor included on the Schwinn 131 upright exercise bike makes it easy to exercise on the machine while realizing the maximum advantages. You are able to activate the program you prefer from 16 distinct levels of resistance. While you originally start working out on this bike, you ought to use a beginner’s difficulty level. While you continue on with your exercise bike, though, you ought to advance your resistance level as you are using it. You will quickly discover that working out with the Schwinn 131 upright exercise bike helps you to manage this without complications.

The screen will also tell you the amount of calories you are using up, how fast you are pedaling while you work out, the distance that you virtually cover, in addition to the resistance levels. This will illutstrate how this current workout is affecting you , in addition to show you the improvements you have made since your starting exercise routines. You should discover that when you keep exercising with the Schwinn 131 upright exercise bike, you can quickly build up your staying power along with your speed and resistance levels. This is meant to allow you to burn additional calories and also maintain toning in your legs and abs.

Another advantage is that, the Schwinn 120 Upright Exercise Bike is equipped with heart rate sensors. This feature is designed to help you to monitor your heart rate as you work out on your Schwinn exercise bike. A heart rate sensor is important because it determines the amount of fat you get rid of.

You will want to steadily speed up your heart rate while you work out using the bike and hold your heart rate at a high level for a predetermined length of time to work off away fat. You should then cool down while you reach the end your exercise period making sure that your pulse steadily declines. The Schwinn 131 upright exercise bike comes with programs which can allow you to raise your heart rate slowly and then enable you to cool down effectively. Just respond to the directions on the display screen and you can enjoy a particularly effective exercise session that melts away extra pounds the right way as you keep yourself fit using the Schwinn 131 upright exercise bike.

If Fitness Is Your Goal, You Will Have To Work A Little

Exercise No Responses »

Mar 222010

Hey guys, it’s time to get your acts together! Now that you’ve spent a fortune on fitness books and and DVD’s, it’s time to stop whining about still being fat and flabby. Just joining a gym and buying stuff isn’t going to make you fit and healthy – you have to do the workouts if you want results!

Boys – did you expect to magically look like the guy on the cover of that ‘six-pack abs’ e-book you bought just because you went to the trouble of printing it out and putting a staple through it? Six months have passed and pushing a staple gun is the most exercise you’ve gotten out of it. That was such a big chore that you had to lie down on the couch and read erotic comics.

You girls are just as bad. You had an excuse not to work out while you waited for your aerobics DVD to come in the mail, but what about after that? You were pretty excited when it came, so you sat down with a box of chocolates and watched it from beginning to end. The next day, you watched it again while you worked on your Disney scrapbook. Now it’s been so long since you used it that you can’t find it.

If you want to make money easily, start a gym for people like yourselves. You religiously go in once a month and pay for your membership. On that day, since you’re already there, you decide to go for a spin on the exercise bike and then pump a little iron. After a few minutes on the bike, you decide you’d rather come back for a workout when you’re feeling a little better.

They love you at the gym because like so many of their other members, you pay them for a service you never use. Your loss is their gain. You don’t cost them a dime, but continue to pay them big bucks for your gym membership.

What you do with your body is nobody’s business but yours. Just keep it that way, okay? Stop whining about how nothing you’ve tried works. It doesn’t work if you don’t use it. You don’t lose weight by thinking about it and you don’t get strong by going to a personal massager. You do that after you’ve had a good weight training session and have earned a good massage. What ever made you think that having your flab massaged would make it go away?

If fitness is really your goal, you really will stop complaining and start doing something about it. Otherwise, just go back to your comics and scrapbooks.

If Fitness Is Your Goal, You Will Have To Work A Little

Fitness Equipment No Responses »

Mar 182010

Okay boys and girls, enough is enough! You’ve downloaded a couple of dozen e-books, spent money on a CD course or three and joined your local gym. Now you’re complaining because you’re still flabby and overweight. Guess what? That’s because you don’t get fit by spending money: You get fit by working out!

Let’s start with you men. You take a look in the mirror and decide that it’s time to buy an e-book about washboard abs so you can look like the guy on the cover. Then you print it and put a staple through the pages. After all that work, you decide its time for a break, so you grab some erotic comics and a snack and sit down and read for awhile. Six months later, the workout manual is in the same place you left it before.

Gals, is this what you did? You ordered an aerobics workout DVD online. When it came in the mail, you popped it into the player and sat on the floor to study it once before you actually followed along. The next time you played it, you sat on the floor and worked on your disney scrapbook while it played in the background. You haven’t looked at it since.

As for that gym membership – they must love you there! You just pay them a bunch of money every month and maybe go in for a half-hearted warm-up on the exercise bike before you decide that you’re feeling a little run-down and better come back tomorrow.

If fitness is really your goal, you really will stop complaining and start doing something about it. Otherwise, just go back to your comics and scrapbooks.

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